The present invention relates to printers, and more particularly to a method to improve diagnosis of repetitive quality faults in prints produced by printers having rotating elements.
In printers when certain rotating elements fail they leave a repetitive quality fault in prints. When such a repetitive print quality fault occurs, the user generally calls for a service person to come to the site to diagnose what the cause of the repetitive quality fault is and to repair such fault. This could result in down time for the printer that is not acceptable to the user. The alternative is to replace all of the rotating elements in the hope that the cause of the fault will be cured, or to replace each rotating element one at a time until the fault is cured. This also is time consuming, and may still require a service call if one of the rotating elements is not replaceable by the user.
What is desired is an improved method for diagnosing repetitive quality faults in prints produced by a printer having rotating elements that allows a user to easily diagnose the particular rotating element probably causing the fault, and either replace the element or order a replacement in a timely manner.
Accordingly the present invention provides a method of improving diagnosis of repetitive quality faults appearing in prints produced by printers having rotating elements by providing the printer with an internal test page that has a set of marks along a ruled margin. The mark closest to a lead edge of the test page is a reference mark and characteristic marks are located at a distance from the reference mark along the ruled margin corresponding to the circumference each of the rotating elements that may cause a repetitive quality fault. Each characteristic mark is labeled with the name of the replaceable part associated with the rotating element with that circumference. The test page is printed out and then placed atop the print having the repetitive quality fault. The reference mark is aligned with the first occurrence of the fault and the user observes which characteristic mark aligns with a second occurrence of the fault. The labeling of that characteristic mark indicates the rotating element to be replaced.
The objects, advantages and other novel features of the present invention are apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the appended claims and attached drawing.